Method, System and Program Product for Assigning a Responder to a Requester in a Collaborative Environment

1. A method of managing access to first and second support persons, the first support person currently engaged in one or more chat sessions with one or more first customers respectively, the second support person currently engaged in one or more chat sessions with one or more second customers respectively, the method comprising the steps of: a computer determining a first workload of the first support person based in part on an amount of text entered by the one or more first customers into the one or more respective chat session with the first support person and determining a second workload of the second support person based in part on an amount of text entered by the one or more second customers into the one or more respective chat session with the second support person; and the computer receiving a request by a third customer to initiate another chat session with a support person, and in response, the computer determining which of the first and second support persons has a lesser amount of workload, and based on the determination of which of the first and second support persons has a lesser amount of workload, the computer initiating a chat session between the third customer and the first or second support person which has the lesser amount of workload; and wherein a greater amount of text correlates to a greater workload than a lesser amount of text, for both the first and second support persons.

2. A computer program product for managing access to first and second support persons, the first support person currently engaged in one or more chat sessions with one or more first customers respectively, the second support person currently engaged in one or more chat sessions with one or more second customers respectively, the computer program product comprising: one or more computer-readable tangible storage devices and program instructions stored on at least one of the one or more storage devices, the program instructions comprising: program instructions to determine a first workload of the first support person based in part on an amount of text entered by the one or more first customers into the one or more respective chat session with the first support person and determine a second workload of the second support person based in part on an amount of text entered by the one or more second customers into the one or more respective chat session with the second support person; and program instructions to receive a request by a third customer to initiate another chat session with a support person, and in response, determine which of the first and second support persons has a lesser amount of workload, and based on the determination of which of the first and second support persons has a lesser amount of workload, initiate a chat session between the third customer and the first or second support person which has the lesser amount of workload; and wherein a greater amount of text correlates to a greater workload than a lesser amount of text, for both the first and second support persons.